


When I Say "Shotgun", You Say...

by Mildredo



Category: Glee
Genre: Gun Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildredo/pseuds/Mildredo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running away to New York together seems like a good idea. (AKA dumb boys make dumb decisions.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Say "Shotgun", You Say...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 Kurt/Blaine Reversebang. Accompanying art can be found here: http://kwest300.deviantart.com/art/Tears-389179857  
> The title is from Time to Dance by Panic! At The Disco.

It’s been three hours. Three hours since the wedding in the choir room. Three hours since Blaine quietly took Kurt aside from the celebrations and led him to a familiar corner of an eerily deserted corridor. Three hours since Kurt said ‘yes’ without hesitation and they both managed to control their ecstatic grins long enough to not-so-subtly excuse themselves and leave early.

Outside, the sun is setting and the sliver of sky visible through Blaine’s window is painted in soft hues of orange and pink, studded with the silhouettes of newly budded trees in the distance. Inside, the light is dimming but neither of them can find the will to move enough to switch on a lamp. It’s a tangle of sweat-sticky limbs and bed sheets, matching breaths and steady heartbeats, and it’s been so long since they’ve just been quiet together that the silence feels delicate, like thin ice, and at any moment either of them could make a wrong move and break the moment. So they’re still, and they’re silent, but for the gentle whoosh of fingertips brushing over skin, and they’re together.  
Kurt breaks it. Blaine is scared to say anything; too overwhelmed from taking a risk and having it pay off, too afraid he’ll ruin everything with clumsy words. Kurt taps his fingers up and down where they’re resting on Blaine’s chest, just enough that the new addition shines in the dying light, and smiles when Blaine huffs out a little laugh.

“You made a good choice,” Kurt says, his voice just above a whisper as he lays his fingers flat again.

“I’m glad you like it,” Blaine says. “I thought it looked kind of like the one you liked in that jewelry store when you bought Carole’s birthday present.”

“It’s perfect. And not just the ring.”

Blaine can’t help but giggle at the cheesiness, and Kurt joins in as Blaine hugs him closer. The silence falls again, and it’s still calm and comfortable, but now it’s been broken once it’s loaded with the expectation of another break.

“You didn’t have to say yes.”

When Kurt moves his head from Blaine’s shoulder to look him in the eye, he is suddenly serious, with big, sincere eyes, looking so vulnerable that Kurt shifts his entire body so he can reach a hand out to cup his cheek.

“I just mean… if you’d said no, or it was too soon, or whatever… It would’ve been okay.”

“Blaine,” Kurt breathes, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “I said yes because I wanted to. Because I’ve always wanted to. Okay?”

Blaine nods and smiles, and Kurt uses his cupped hand to draw Blaine closer for a short, soft kiss. They settle once more, clasping hands across their bodies and both smiling at the feeling of cool metal between their fingers.

“So, what do we tell people?” Blaine asks, and Kurt hums a question in response. “Do we just say we’re back together? Or do we tell them we’re engaged and face the onslaught? Because I’ve already had Sam and Tina telling me this is a stupid idea…”

“Why say anything right away?” Kurt says, a grin spreading across his face. “Come back to New York with me. Everyone can assume whatever they like. We can spend a few days figuring this out properly without the whole of Lima meddling.”

“But, your dad…”

“Isn’t sick any more. He won’t mind me leaving early, especially if it’s with you.”

“There’s still Rachel in New York.”

“Rachel can learn to mind her own business. Besides, she’s going to be too preoccupied with the musical to really care.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. I’ll change the flights in the morning, and persuade Santana to stay here a bit longer.”

“Oh god,” Blaine says, laughing. “What’s that going to cost you?”

“Probably a couple of limbs, a vital organ or two, and relinquishing all of my allotted TV hours for the next month so she can watch endless episodes of _The L Word_.”

Blaine grins and places a kiss in Kurt’s mussed hair, and remembers the way that expensive coconut oil conditioner makes his hair soft enough to bury his face in. He inhales with his nose pressed to Kurt’s scalp, because he can, and the coconut has changed to something fruitier, strong in contrast with the sex-heavy air in the room. Kurt chuckles a little and scratches his fingers lightly through the sparse patch of soft hair growing at the bottom of Blaine’s usually well-groomed belly, eliciting a quiet sigh.

“We could always just do it,” Kurt says, trailing his fingertips slowly up the centre of Blaine’s torso, stopping to briefly circle his bellybutton. “I mean, it’s legal there, and we’re both adults…”

“Eloping?”

“Maybe. What do you think?”

Blaine catches Kurt’s trailing hand in his own and locks their fingers tight, tugging gently upwards so Kurt leans his head up to meet Blaine’s eye. Blaine nods just slightly, before catching Kurt’s lips with his own and pulling him into an instantly deep, uncoordinated kiss, tongues and teeth and too much saliva. And all at once they’re not kissing, not really, because they’re both smiling so hard into it that it becomes little more than pressing their faces together.

It’s completely dark inside, and the last traces of sunset are fading from the sky, but visibility is the last thing they care about right now.

*

Kurt manages to get flights for the next evening, and leaving is a quiet affair. They tell Burt that they’re going back to get some time together alone, and he’s so thrilled that they’re back together that he practically pushes them out of the door. Kurt doesn’t see the raised eyebrow he directs at Blaine, and Blaine doesn’t respond to it. He mentions going to New York to his parents, and he gets a cursory response that tells him that they weren’t really listening anyway. Kurt is locked in a stalemate with Santana until he tells her the real reason they’re going, and she even hugs him and whispers her congratulations in his ear, and he knows that it is both honest and coming with an unspoken threat to castrate him if he tells anyone. Anything nice Santana says or does for him comes with that threat. It’s how she shows her love, Kurt has learnt. He would never have believed that the only person he would tell about his impending elopement would be Santana, over his dad even, but it’s necessary to avoid both her interruption and a stern lecture.

The lecture will come anyway, but once they’re married it can only have so much impact.

Kurt doesn’t get anxious about flying. He loves it, and he’s usually excited about everything from the stores in the airport to the delivery of crappy plane food to the fact that planes now apparently have wifi. He’s more subdued than normal, and he’s fidgeting and twisting his fingers in his hair and he can’t seem to stop tapping his foot, even when he gets annoyed at himself for doing it. No matter how much Blaine rubs the back of his hand with his thumb to calm his twitches and reminds him every ten minutes that they don’t have to go through with this, and it’s okay if he wants to change his mind, Kurt defiantly shakes his head and diverts his attention back to the safety card he’d read eight times before the plane even took off.

As the sky outside darkens and the seatbelt sign is relit, Kurt perks up and gazes adoringly out of the window at the city beneath them, all twinkling lights and stoicism and acceptance. He still isn’t over the acceptance part – the thought that he’ll be married in this town makes his stomach tingle with butterflies. Blaine squeezes his hand tight and when Kurt turns around, he’s leaning to look out of the window with a matching dopey grin, and everything feels alright. This is their secret, and once they’re married things will be different. The distance will still be there, but not for much longer, and they’ll have something tangible to remind them always.

The apartment is empty when they finally reach Bushwick, even though it’s late. They’re too tired from travelling to care much about where Rachel might be, and soon half-finished cups of tea are left on the coffee table to be dealt with in the morning. As he squishes the pillow under his head, Blaine can’t help but think of the last time he was in this bed; post-cheating, post-confession, mid-breakup. Kurt sees his pensive frown and begins to pepper tiny kisses over his face until he smiles.

“Better than the last time I was here,” Blaine says, giggling a little under the tickle of soft fuzz on Kurt’s upper lip from not having shaved today. It’s cute how he’s only just started to need to shave, and Blaine thinks he’d like to see Kurt with a full beard one day, just to see what it would look like. He doubts Kurt will ever agree to grow one.

“Definitely better,” Kurt says against Blaine’s temple, kissing there one more time before sliding back to his own side of the bed. They settle with their backs facing inwards, reaching their top arms backwards to link their fingers together and lacing their feet together in a neat pile.

“I love you,” is Blaine’s last sentiment before he falls asleep.

“I love you too,” is Kurt’s.

*

After they wake up early, after walking the strangely quiet early morning streets, after coffee and pastries in Kurt’s favorite walking distance café, after sitting out on the fire escape and watching the world come to life; after all of that, they sit down with Kurt’s laptop and start to research eloping. It’s not as simple and spontaneous as the movies and the television shows have led them to believe, and Blaine’s bullet-pointed list of things they have to do seems to grow longer by the second. The bureaucracy almost outweighs the romance of it all, but the romance just barely scrapes a win. Every time he catches himself staring at it and frowning, Kurt is there a second later with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. They’ve quickly fallen into a wonderful kind of domesticity. It’s easy to forget that it isn’t permanent yet, that there’s still high school and roommates and auditions before it can be, and it’s easy to forget that just days ago they were still broken up.

“It feels like longer,” Blaine says as Kurt serves up homemade soup for lunch. Normally he would’ve gone out and bought some, because the kitchen is tiny and poorly equipped, but it felt right in the bubble of domesticity to cook from scratch.

“Like nothing changed,” Kurt agrees, dipping bread into the soup and swiftly transferring it to his mouth. His tongue darts out to catch the orange tomato liquid from around his lips. “Nothing, and yet everything.”

Blaine stirs his soup for a fraction of a second too long before taking a mouthful, and Kurt is ready to question it. “You okay?”

Blaine hums, waits a second, and takes a breath.

“I just – are you _sure_?”

“Are _you_ sure?” Kurt asks in response, and Blaine shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he says, staring into his soup like it holds all the answers. “I want to. But I don’t want you to regret it. I don’t want you to regret marrying me. I don’t want you to regret doing it like this, not having your family here. You and your dad have the best relationship; I’d hate to be the thing that comes between you.”

“Blaine,” Kurt says in the soft, mildly amused tone that makes Blaine’s heart feel three times bigger. “You won’t come between me and my dad. If he’s mad, I’ll figure that out with him.” Blaine looks up from the soup to meet Kurt’s eye, and Kurt reaches across the table and around the bowls to grasp his hands. “If we’re both still certain about this, we’ll go down to the City Clerk’s office this afternoon and apply for our marriage license. And if we’re not certain, then we’ll just have a nice afternoon in Brooklyn.”

“I’m certain,” Blaine says.

“I’m certain too.”

He’s less certain than he wants Blaine to believe. The guilt of the deception gnaws in his gut and his finger has hovered over the ‘call’ button beneath his dad’s name too many times. That’s just eloping, he tells himself. Eloping is secrets, it’s running away, it’s lying to your family and then having to tell them the truth and risk their anger. But he’s going to marry Blaine, and if his dad is angry he knows it won’t last long. It isn’t how he imagined his wedding, but sometimes things don’t turn out how they’re imagined. It’s Blaine. And it’s forever. And that makes it all worth it.

*

“Isabelle! Entirely hypothetical question, asking for a friend. What are the chances you have any wedding officiant contacts with a venue who could marry two guys in the next couple of days? Preferably on the combined budget of a broke college student and part time intern and an even more broke high school student? I told you, entirely hypothetical. Okay, let me know.”

Kurt ends the call and pockets the phone, placing a check next to ‘organize officiant’ on the checklist pinned to the wall.

“Isabelle sends her love,” he says as he flops down beside Blaine on the couch, craning his neck to check the flower order he’s about to place.

“To your _entirely hypothetical friends_ , you mean?” Blaine sticks his tongue out slightly between his teeth, and Kurt can’t help but lean in to kiss him and gently bite the exposed tip.

“Exactly. She’s working on it. She knows everyone in New York. There’s contacts coming out of her ears, she’ll find someone.”

“Did you hear from Rachel?”

“She went home to celebrate getting _Funny Girl_ with her dads. We must’ve barely missed each other at the airport. She’s sad we’re not there, but I promised we’d celebrate with her soon.”

“Which means that we have the apartment to ourselves,” Blaine says, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

“Yes, it does,” Kurt says, leaning in to kiss Blaine softly on the lips again. “So, flowers.”

“Nothing extravagant. Freesia, carnations, and red and yellow roses.”

“Of course.”

Kurt gets up and checks ‘flowers’ off the list, then reads aloud. “License is processing. Isabelle is working on the officiant and the venue. The jewelry store is resizing and engraving rings. Suits are at the dry cleaners. Flowers are ordered.”

“Who said wedding planning was hard work?” Blaine grins, bending his neck backwards so his head hangs over the top of the sofa to look at Kurt upside down.

“I think this is why people elope. It’s much less stressful.”

“Whoever came up with the idea was a genius.”

Kurt gives a little laugh and bends to kiss Blaine on his upside down chin. As they push the laptop aside and curl together to watch a movie, Kurt wonders if it really counts as eloping if you have your own apartment to stay in and one of the city’s best-connected businesswomen doing the grunt work for you. He only wonders briefly, though, because he and Blaine have a record of never making it past ten minutes into a movie before making out through the rest of it, and they have a lot of lost time to catch up on.

*

“So, tomorrow,” Blaine whispers into the darkness of Kurt’s bedroom. Even though there are no roommates or neighbors around, it still feels necessary to speak quietly when the lights are off and the world outside is winding down.

“Tomorrow,” Kurt echoes, smiling when he feels Blaine grinning against his shoulder. “Tomorrow, we’re getting married.”

“Mmhmm,” Blaine hums. “Nervous?”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“I dunno,” Blaine says. “Getting married. It’s life changing.”

“Blaine,” Kurt laughs. “The Warblers made fun of us for being an old married couple when we’d been together for three weeks. The only difference is this time it’s official.”

“In some states and a few countries,” Blaine says sadly, causing Kurt to squeeze his arms tight around him.

“That’ll change. We’re at the forefront of a revolution, we’re pioneers. We’ll be able to tell our grandkids how we were among the first of our generation to experience marriage equality.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Blaine giggles. He grips Kurt’s sides tightly and Kurt shrieks as Blaine rolls them until he’s on top, bearing weight on his hands, with his head close enough to Kurt’s that their combined breath is hot between their faces. “We’re going to be amazing granddads.”

“You’ve got the wardrobe already,” Kurt says, and shrieks again as Blaine retaliates by digging his fingers into the spot under Kurt’s ribs that makes him flail and scream with laughter. He tries to squirm away, but Blaine is flat and heavy on top of him now, with his head in the crook of Kurt’s neck, relentlessly tickling until Kurt is begging for mercy.

“We’re going to be amazing at marriage,” Blaine says, his lips brushing the skin beneath Kurt’s ear as Kurt pants hard to get his breath back. Kurt just nods and rests his head lightly against Blaine’s. Blaine begins to nip and suck at the skin he can reach, and manages to evoke a succession of soft moans from Kurt before he’s pushed away and rolls back to the mattress, settling back against Kurt’s side.

“I’m not having a hickey on my wedding day, Blaine.”

“I thought it was _our_ wedding.”

“Carry on like that and maybe I won’t marry you,” Kurt says, bending his neck to kiss the top of Blaine’s head. “This is New York. There are thousands of eligible young gays. One of them will marry me, I’m a catch.”

“None of them love you like I do though,” Blaine says, slinging his arm across Kurt’s stomach, his argument made.

“No, none of them do.”

*

The venue Isabelle arranges is a small wedding chapel in a dark street of a neighborhood Kurt has never heard of. She qualified the information as ‘the best she could do’, and so as soon as she gave Kurt the name, he started checking it out. From his research, it appears perfectly legitimate - just in a slightly less than desirable location, but that’s okay. That’s what eloping is, he tells himself again. The officiant, Terra, is half of a married couple who run the place, and inside is intimate and definitely cozy, well maintained with lots of pristine white surfaces and delicately carved wood. Terra brushes red hair out of her eyes when they arrive and enthusiastically shows them around – it doesn’t take long, but the tour is appreciated. The lobby leads into a dressing room, where their suits are already hung in on the walls in their dry-cleaning bags and the ring boxes are side by side on a countertop. The dressing room has another door, which leads into the small chapel. The husband, Jim, is setting up the ordered flower arrangements inside, and nods his chubby head in acknowledgement as they pass.

“You can take as long as you need to get ready,” Terra says brightly, as they arrive back in the lobby after their short tour. “When you’re ready, just give us the signal and we’ll begin. I’ve got witnesses arranged for you and they’ll be arriving soon. Do you have any particular music you’d like?”

Blaine looks at Kurt, squeezing his hand, and they silently agree. They’d forgotten to decide on music, but there’s only one option.

“ _Come What May_ from _Moulin Rouge_ ,” Kurt says, and Terra nods and scribbles it down onto a notepad.

“No problem,” she says. “So, that’s everything. I’ll get the final touches together for you. The dressing room is all yours, so enjoy.”

Kurt leads Blaine into the dressing room by the hand, and kisses him once as the doors close behind them. The room seems smaller with the doors shut, more intimate, with nondescript romantic music piping quietly through tinny speakers to cover the sounds of Terra and Jim busily setting up on either side of them. They change in silence, facing away from each other to maintain some kind of surprise element. They’re both wearing suits they already owned, suits they’ve seen before, but it’s different this time. It’s not prom, or the family Christening Kurt coerced Blaine into going to for moral support amongst the religion of it all and the quietly judging eyes of distant family members. It’s their wedding. And when they turn around, they both have tears in their eyes.

“Beautiful,” Kurt says, his voice cracking a little. Blaine responds by stepping forward and kissing him hard, wrapping his arms firmly around his waist as Kurt’s rest atop his shoulders. They back up against the wall together, kissing open-mouthed and careless, with quiet moans escaping from the space between their mouths and no idea who made which sound. Conveniently placed legs mean that crotches rub against thighs with all the enough pressure and friction to make the moans louder and the room feel hotter as they both get more and more turned on.

They don’t hear the commotion on the outside of their walls. They don’t hear the struggle or the demands. They don’t hear the unanswered call from a wife to a husband.

They hear the gunshot.

*

Blaine shuts down when he panics. He sits and tucks his knees under his chin and silently cries and doesn’t speak. It’s been his coping method since he was a little boy, and it works. The monsters stayed in the closet, the older brother stopped teasing him and moved away, the bullies stayed at his old school, the gunman was an accidental shot. He shuts down and, eventually, everything bad goes away. Sometimes it takes time. But it works.

Kurt takes panic and runs with it. He can’t be still, he has to try hard to be quiet, and he breathes so fast and so heavily that it makes him dizzy. He can’t harness it the way he can with simple stage nerves; he can’t take it and pare it down and focus it into something productive and brilliant. Panic explodes out of him, because every time he’s tried to shut it down, it just got worse. He has to use all of his strength to harness it now, because Blaine is sitting in a ball under the counter, his back pressed into a corner of the wall, and he’s completely useless. Kurt has the energy, and he has to do what he can.

He trembles hard as he pushes his eye to the keyhole of the lobby-side door and squints to see through it. He sees Terra, and several figures covered in black clothing and masks. They’re all holding guns, different sizes and shapes like they raided a hunting store and grabbed the first things they could find. He slips across the room and looks through the keyhole on the chapel side. Jim, still on top of his ladder, is surrounded by more of the same dark figures and is clinging onto a flower arrangement like it’ll save him. The music has stopped, and the voices outside are clear enough to hear close to the doors.

“There’s gunmen,” Kurt whispers, crouching close to Blaine. “A lot of them. I could hear Terra say that there was no one else in the building, just her and Jim, so we have to be quiet.” Blaine nods weakly and wipes ineffectually at his damp cheeks.

“Why?” he whispers back, his eyes big and expectant like Kurt might know the answer. But Kurt just shrugs, and forces his overexcited limbs to curl under the counter beside Blaine and sit pressed against him, holding his hand awkwardly over their pulled up knees. Blaine cries, and Kurt tries desperately to steady his racing breaths and pounding heart, and their hands tremble together and dampen with sweat, and they’re silent.

It’s the worst kind of silence. It hurts their ears and every second it goes on is another second of terror. The anticipation of hearing another gunshot, or a scream, or the dressing room doors opening and having guns pointed in their faces. Kurt moves occasionally, mostly to check through the keyholes but partly because his body aches from the effort of keeping the panic in. The black figures are unmoving on both sides, surrounding the captive Terra and Jim with their guns raised as a threat, a warning. In moments of bravery, or possibly stupidity, Kurt whispers to Blaine that he loves him, and Blaine can’t bring himself to open his mouth but he nods and squeezes Kurt’s hand as recourse.

When a second shot rings out, Kurt jumps so hard he hits his head against the countertop. Blaine just cries heavier, still silent. Rubbing the rapidly growing lump on his head, Kurt crawls to check the keyholes again. The chapel side still hasn’t changed, with Jim still clinging to roses on top of a ladder. On the lobby side, the configuration of gunmen has changed and Terra isn’t there. Kurt breathes in deeply and settles back beside Blaine without a word, just resting his aching head on Blaine’s shoulder. It’s silent again, and the silence is empty and terrifying.

The silence seems to last for hours, with the constant dread and expectation of something else happening at any moment. Every breath, every involuntary movement, every heartbeat feels too loud, like any one of them could be the thing that triggers a chain reaction of noise and discovery and pain.

The next sound they hear is sudden enough to startle them both, but it isn’t a gunshot. It’s muffled shouting and the thud of something heavy on something hard and hollow. When Kurt crawls back to the keyholes, there are even more black-clad figures on both sides, but the new additions are emblazoned with NYPD insignia, and Kurt sighs in relief.

“Police,” he whispers, turning around to Blaine. Blaine gives a small smile in response and runs his hands through his hair. Standing up, Kurt offers out a hand to Blaine and uses it to pull him upright and into a tight, bone-crushing hug as he sobs softly on Kurt’s shoulder. It seems like it’s over, or at least it will be soon, and for now all they can do is hold each other and cry together and wait until it’s safe to make their presence known. It’s a different silence, the kind of silence found only hidden somewhere within all the noise.

*

“What happened?” Kurt asks the officer who stayed behind with them once the gunmen had been removed from the building. They’re sitting in the chapel while Blaine drinks some hot tea to calm himself. This is the part Kurt is good at – he struggles to shut it down in the moment, but once it’s over he gets up and moves on. Blaine takes a little while to recover, but the tea seems to be helping.

“Money, probably,” the officer says. “Picked a random building. Wedding chapel, there’s probably money in that business. Not to mention the chance of rings, computers, music systems, anything valuable. Terra did a fantastic job of holding them off and managing to press the panic button to alert us. I don’t think they were counting on someone like her.”

“Will she be okay?”

The officer nods. “She’s got some pretty bad shock, but she’ll be fine after a day or two in the hospital. It looks like her arm got grazed by a bullet too, so they’ll patch her up.” He turns his attention to Blaine, who is finishing his tea with more color in his cheeks than he had to begin with. “How you doing there, buddy?”

“Better,” Blaine says, his voice a little hoarse.

“Good,” the officer smiles. “Sorry your day got ruined. I’ll give you guys a ride home before I head back to the precinct.”

*

The drive home is short, but they both have to admit that riding in a cop car is pretty cool. The officer – Jeremy, he’s insisted – even drives a stretch with the sirens blaring. He’s obviously trying hard to give them some nicer memories of their failed attempt at a wedding, and it’s both appreciated and working. Home is a good feeling, and they sink into the couch together before the door has finished closing. The elopement checklist is still pinned to the wall, and it seems like months since they were planning.

“We didn’t get married,” Blaine says, shifting with Kurt so that they can lie on the couch. Blaine settles between Kurt’s legs and rests back onto his chest, Kurt’s arms wrapping tight around him.

“We didn’t,” Kurt echoes.

“Twice in a few months,” Blaine sighs. “Do I attract these things?”

“Honey,” Kurt coos, stroking a hand reassuringly against Blaine’s chest. “It’s just a coincidence. A horrible coincidence.”

“I know.” Blaine cranes his head back to look up at Kurt, mostly looking up at his chin, and Kurt leans down to kiss his forehead.

“I’m going to call my dad,” Kurt says. “Tell him everything. I have to.”

Kurt shifts uncomfortably to reach his cell phone from his pocket, and puts the call on speaker so Blaine can hear too. Burt’s greeting is too cheery, and Kurt’s heart sinks at the thought of it turning to anger.

“Hi dad,” Kurt says.

“Hey, kiddo. How’s the city?”

“It’s great, it’s good that we got to spend some time alone.”

“Okay, out with it,” Burt says, knowing something’s up in the way that only he can. Kurt sighs, relenting easily.

“Let me finish. And try not to get mad. It’s bad for your heart and – “

“Kurt.”

Kurt explains the whole thing as quickly as possible, and once he’s finished Burt grumbles down the phone resignedly. Kurt can practically see him taking off his baseball cap and rubbing at his balding head.

“But you’re okay?” he asks finally. “You’re not hurt?”

“Yes, we’re okay.”

“Good. Then I can tell you both what massive goddamn idiots you are for thinking that you could just up and get married at eighteen without telling anyone. And then I can tell you that I wish you were both here for me to hug the crap out of after going through all that.”

Kurt laughs, and squeezes his free arm around Blaine tighter. They talk for a while after that, just chat about inconsequential things, and Blaine apologizes repeatedly for proposing even after his lecture from Burt. They promise to take care of each other, and Blaine promises he’ll come by the garage more often when he’s back in Lima. It’s a better reaction than they expected, and Burt just seems thankful that they’re alive. He reminds them once more that eloping was a terrible idea derailed by terrible coincidence, and that next time he both expects to be forewarned and present, preferably in some kind of ridiculously expensive designer suit he’ll wear once and never again. Once he’s gone, it’s getting dark outside and the rumbling of Blaine’s stomach reminds them that they haven’t eaten all day.

“Do you want to order takeout and eat it in bed?” Kurt asks.

“ _You_ are going to eat in bed? What about the Egyptian cotton?” Blaine says incredulously, looking up at Kurt with a grin. Kurt just bats lightly at Blaine’s forehead with his the palm of his hand and dials the pizza place he shamefully has on speed dial to order two with everything. It’s hard to argue that they haven’t earned the indulgence, and they end up falling asleep bloated, with half a pizza each left in the boxes resting on their thighs. The door is locked more securely than usual, with every chain and deadbolt in place, but the paranoia is as justifiable as the pizza.

*

They stay engaged. It doesn’t really make sense to backslide on that part, but they make sure to get Burt’s blessing before making it official. Kurt keeps his engagement ring, and Blaine gets one to match. The wedding rings stay on chains around their necks, each hiding their half of the engraving on the inside: Kurt’s reading ‘I will love you…’ and Blaine’s ‘…until my dying day.’ The rest of their long distance time is hard, but it seems easier now there’s a real end in sight. Blaine signs into Skype one evening and before even saying hello, he explodes with the news that he’s been accepted into three schools in New York, so whichever he chooses he’s definitely going to be there with Kurt. He knows his parents would be happier if he chose Columbia, but it’s three days later when he announces to Kurt that he’s chosen NYADA, and they can really make plans for the move.  
They don’t make it out of college before they get married. They do it the summer between Kurt’s Junior and Senior year, and they do it in style this time. They have new rings and new suits this time, and it’s more akin to the wedding they’d both imagined. It’s a big, cliché outdoor ceremony in Central Park, with family, former New Directions, former Warblers, and their NYADA friends all gathered for the occasion. The sun shines, the old show choirs reform to provide music, and people dance and sing, eat from the massive buffet and drink from the hired bar. Blaine’s parents come, and it’s the first time since he was tiny he’s seen them be anything other than indifferent. Their section of the park is fenced off and decorated with streamers and balloons, and they celebrate into the night. Kurt dances with his dad, Blaine persuades Cooper to dance with him, and then they dance together, slotted like two halves of a whole as they sway as one in the moonlight.

When they go home, it’s to the Manhattan apartment they rent knowing that it’s too big and too expensive for them now, but they have the chance to make it into a home before they need one - the two smaller bedrooms have become home offices, but they’re earmarked to turn back into bedrooms for their kids someday. They’re buzzed from too much champagne and exhausted from the day when they fall into bed, trying to get out of their suits without having to stand back up again. Once Blaine has his shirt off, he hooks the ring around his neck with his newly-adorned ring finger and holds it out.

“Second time lucky.”

“Second time lucky,” Kurt repeats, and rolls over to kiss Blaine, stroking his cheek where it’s soft from recently shaving off the impressive finals beard he had grown.

“I love you,” is Kurt’s last sentiment before he falls asleep.

“I love you too,” is Blaine’s.


End file.
